The True Purpose of Capitalism

Hehehe... no kid... that's not what most people think....

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The largest fortunes were made by people without college degree. Marx capitism is DEAD. Who is capitalist (in the traditional sense)? Bareboned definition: it's the man who setups a business and re invests significant portion of profits back into business. Today: 1) capitalists are nearly extinct as individuals (board of directors isn't capitalist), 2) corporations do not accumulate capitals anymore to reinvest, they borrow investment capital (through various means). 19th centrury capitalist could survive without banker, 21st century board of directors cant. The question arises: what is real capitalism, 19th or 21st century?

transformation of people into employees could be looked upon not as a failure of humans, but as logical evolution of capitalism. In the USA, for example, diversified semi-subsistence farming (and concominant businesses) were destroyed (with transformation of semi-independent individuals into wage slaves) by the pressures of capitalist economy. It was not destroyed because some kind of pestilence has hit human character. Thus, to assume that wage slavery can be substituted by enterpreneurs slavery (enterpreneur isn't as free as he may appear), provided proper breeding and education is a wishful thinking. All those newly bred enterpreneurs will need to swim into capitalist waters which are quite poisonous to small fish.

It's interdependent not independent world. We must give up certain level of autonomy to stay alive. Most of enterpreneurs are slaves too. Slave of customer, banker, market prices, suppliers, etc. BTW, any human unit could be looked upon as enterpreneur - every unit sells its labor to a boss. Some units are way better than other equivalent units in this business.

So, transforming oneself into a boss who gives workers enough $ to survive will solve all problems

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?

In the age of shrinking resources, I see lots of pathes from capitalism to feudalism or even slavery.

 

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19th, of course.

No. That's one of the reasons capitalism doesn't work. It is not good enough.

Which shrinking resources? Oil?
With technology, we need less resources and we learn to use the ones that are abundant...

 

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Socialism must implement efficiency and stability of the market.

Is scarcity a flawed concept? I don't clearly understand the concept myself. I should look into this.

 

How? Aside from the joke, my understanding is that the underpinnings of the communism happened mainly in the 19th century. No feudalism, kings, knights, nobles, or serfs there.

Instead, Marx's ideas came as a reactionary vision against the mercantile capitalism at the time, where there was formation of large companies that paid tiny wages and, at the same time, imperialism in Africa, India, China, etc. The Paris Commune occurred around the same time.

There are many similar parallels with the contemporary world. I have absolutely no clue how you juxtapose a 19th century movement's basis in a 13th century system.

 

...is to generate ever increasing amounts of ... Capital. Doh!

Socialists never generate increasing capital. They exist only to steal what capital is produced by others possessing actual talent and skill.

Irritating parasites.

Click, click; Boom!

 

Socialism tries to fix the problems of capitalism. It's betten then just ignoring them...

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Those who cannot generate a supporting wage for themselves and their dependents are ignorable usufructs for the well armed.

Perishable parasites.

 

Capitalism is simply economic freedom. The purest form of capitalism is laissez faire which means, "Leave us alone!". Socialism is a step backward, not forward. It is a return to the feudal system. Everyone becomes a serf, a vassal of the government he is dependent on for all his needs. How the idea that we should give most of our money to the government and then scrape and beg for some of it back came to be descriped as progressive is a marvel of marketing.

There is no freedom without economic freedom. Just as a child is dependent on his parents and so must obey them, a population dependent on government largess will never be free.

 

The world is always interdependent. Dixonmassey has already established that fact. The way resources are to be distributed is at hand here.

Economic freedom entails exploitation. Capitalism tends not to address this issue.
The very concept of tax and collective responsibility is socialist. The United States is not socialist enough.

It is better to have obedient children than to have a situation like in Golding's LotF.

 

Laissez-faire capitalism reached two highs : one in the late 19th century with the trusts and political machines and one in the 1920s after WW1. They both have utterly failed.

 

It has to be asked whether the "American Capitalists" yet see the dichotomy between the monopoly on the printing of their money (by the PRIVATELY HELD "Federal Reserve"), and their teetering on the brink of bankrupcy... again.

Who wouldn't love to hear how indentured servitude to a private monopoly is just so much better than a publicly held, elected one- which has democratic checks and balances.

...

The evolution of capitalism is a monetary one, while the evolution of socialism is a political one; the peak of capitalism will be world unimonetism and the peak of socialism will be a constitutional, democratic collective.

I've debated this before and the strict communists always lose because they can't provide a working definition of state ownership; they point to monopolies and "hands off" (laissez-faire) capitalism as evil, unencumbered with the dichotomy that state control is itself a monopoly, and fundamentally uncharitable, either by being too large or rigid (bureaucracy) or too small or unresponsive (ineffectual).

Ditto, the brainwashed imperialists, who never fail to argue one of many strawmen of socialism; Stalinism.

...

POWER TO THE PEOPLE:

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Socialists are those who support socialism; not necessaily those who would benefit most from it.

Don't you know that mixed-economy states like Finland have incredibly high literacy rates and standards of living? Are these countries "Irritating parasites"?

 

Mr. G is perhaps unaware that the US economy is also a balanced one; a market oriented economy with a socialistic safety net. That net is also likely to get larger and larger as the US's bottom tier grows in numbers.

...

United Nations HDI (2005) "Standard of Living" Index

Top thirty countries:

Norway (=)
Iceland (↑ 5)
Australia (=)
Luxembourg (↑ 11)
Canada (↓ 1)
Sweden (↓ 4)
Switzerland (↑ 4)
Ireland (↑ 2)
Belgium (↓ 3)
United States (↓ 2) *** 10th ***
Japan (↓ 2)
Netherlands (↓ 7)
Finland (=)
Denmark (↑ 3)
United Kingdom (↓ 3)
France (=)
Austria (↓ 3)
Italy (↑ 3)
New Zealand (↓ 1)
Germany (↓ 1)
Spain (↓ 1)
Hong Kong SAR of China (↑ 1)
Israel (↓ 1)
Greece (=)
Singapore (=)
Slovenia (↑ 1)
Portugal (↓ 1)
South Korea (=)
Cyprus (↑ 1)
Barbados (↓ 1)


...

"You go, boy"

 

That's not how socialism works. In the US, yes, it works that way. But in true socialist countries you are not dependent on the government. The government in those countries is only a safety net that prevents people from starving to death when they are learning and end up failing.

That's the problem in the US. Too many people are dependent on the government while there's not enough money for everyone. That's not socialism...

 

This is a really good point! Now let me destroy it.

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First you say there is a monopoly on the production of money, and that this is problematic. Yes, that is true. Then you say that the peak of capitalism is a world unimonetism. Now I ask you, isn't that a monopoly of money? I don't get it. First you say that a monopoly of money is bad for the economy, then you say that we need that worldwide to improve the situation?

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Now, let me talk a little bit about how the economy works and why we only have one money per country. Why is money controlled by the state? Well, that's because if it was privately held, it could be mass-produced, causing a huge amount of inflation. And if there was not enough production, people would be scrambling for money, it would also be really hard. So the amount of money in the economy needs to be carefully monitored, which is why that's the job of a central government.

And of course, the money is produced both by the federal government, in conjucntion with banks, which magically produce 10% of all the money they receive from people. :bugeye:

Do I agree with this system? No. I think it will eventually fail. Why? Because we have a perpetual controlled inflation caused by our desire to always have more money, through higher wages. This is not the way to get more value. People focus too much on money and not enough on value. That's why everyone is running around in circles trying to work in a system that doesn't even exist anymore. A system that rewards through higher paychecks ratther then just kicking people out through downsizing.

Th world economy is about to fail miserably because the technology has changed the system dramatically and people have not yet realized that. We are about to learn that we cannot have perpetual inflation...

 

yes, it is going to grow and then it is going to break, and God knows what is going to happen with all the people dependent on the government to survive.

Why is it going to break? Well, first of all we are presently in a time of the economy where everyone is buying on credit. That means that people are getting deeper and deeper into debt. At some point, people will not be able to pay back their debt. Remember the great depression? Why did it happen? What is the mechanics behind the great depression. The mechanics is credit and debt. In that case it was the debt of the banks. The banks couldn't pay back. That's why the amount of money in the banks is so controlled nowadays. Debt and credit are very dangerous for an economy. Last consumer debt? A few trillion of dollars....

Second, people are becoming increasingly dependent on the government to survive. That, coupled with the fact that the baby boomers are soon going to retire and expect the government to take care of them... is a receipt for disaster. The baby boomers are expecting two things:
1) a steady monthly retirement check from the government, half of which was contributed by them every month. The government was supposed to take that half, invest and multiply it.
2) help with health care. We all know the state of the american health care system. Do you really think they will have what they expect? What are they waiting for? A miracle? That's probably all they are capable to do, since that's what they were taught at school... Which brings us to the next point...

Third, the government is terrible at accounting. It has spent way too much money in war and on top of it has given tax breaks. Both are government expenditures. How are they paying for all of this? Hoping that the next generation will pay, as usual? The government also has a hard time keeping track of its accounting responsabilities. If the government borrows retirement money to use it in a war, it has to find a way to replenish it. Has it found it yet? No. I'm sure Bush and his friends are profiting a lot from the war. Millions of dollars. But that money is going to their accounts. And even if it would go to the country, it wouldn't be enough to rescue america.

Fourth, as I said before, the technology has changed the economy radically, but people failed to change the way they work and survive. They still have the mentality of getting a safe high-paying job. There's major downsizing going on and it is not going to stop. People should be working less, and they should be working more independently and being more financially accountable to themselves. That is not happening.

Fith, as Robert Kiyosaki, author or "Rich Dad Poor Dad", #1 best-seller financial book for years has said before, the world has changed but the educational system has not changed yet. People are still not financially literate. And I personally add that the educational system is way too rudementary. It doesn't teach values or life. The system itself is very... well, dumb! It punishes failure, rather then encourage you to try, fail, try again and succeed. People are not learning anything. They just "learn" how to do a job and spend the rest of their lives doing that. Now, it is time for freedom. And that freedom is going to be enforced by the universe. The universe is forcing us to change. We will be going through some major reestructuration very soon...

That doesn't surprise me...

That doesn't surprise me either. Canada keep financially raping their youngsters, making they pay their debt. Canada is also on the route towards being a thrid world country. It has, however, more chances of escaping then the US...

 

Wow.... This thread is turning out to be excellent....!

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Hmmm... there actually might be enough money in the US to support the population, but it's being distributed in an extremely skewed manner - all the money goes to the rich, the big businesses, and war.

 

Unimonetism isn't a monopoly, it is an agreed upon single standard of currency. Milton Friedman said it best- "anything can be money." The "best" money would be durable, inexpensive to make but difficult to forge, and sanitary, while allowing the user freedom, flexibility, and relative privacy.

Whatever "it" is, it cannot be a "metals backed" currency for any number of obvious reasons; chief among them, that metals are not evenly divided in reserves, but also because the supply is not as constant as the cartels would have you believe, and oh yes- the metals cartels, themselves...

Mercantilists such as Benjamin Franklin supposed that the best measure for value (of goods, including currency) is the labor theory. What it proposes is worth another look, even centuries later, since labor is the one common denominator every nation has. (This is one flaw with Classic "Smithian" Economics on a global scale; the assumption of land and capital) In a nutshell, the Labor Theory attributes the value of goods mainly due to the work necessary to form (and package and transport) them. Granted, Franklin never envisioned assembly lines and robotics, but no economic theory in use today did either. The assumption of availability of technology, however, is trumped by the actual availability of labor; in underdeveloped countries, a widget can be handmade, and in high tech countries widgets can be mass produced WHEN market conditions necessitate it, while in intermediary nations there will exist a mixture of handicraft and high tech. It deserves further exploration anyway.

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I'm in no disagreement with you, TruthSeeker, that economies as fragile as ours will make alarming breaks from time to time (and for the reasons you detail); we've been on a Keysian "boom bust" business cycle now for almost 100 years and have yet to work out an escape strategy.

What is so alarming to me (yes, in addition to the staggering consumer debt, most of which is held by a single company, the largest corporation on Earth since the demise of Enron: CitiGroup) is that there is an enormous bubble on Wall Street which is being floated by drug money laundering (among other things).

I don't have the source in front of me, but it not a coincidence that the eigth largest growth industry on Wall St. right now is the private prison industry; separate from the even larger security service industry. The seeds for these abuses, iirc, are rooted in dispicable legislation know as the "Mandatory Sentencing Act of 1986"- the fruit of which is, you guessed it, tyranny.

Nakedly so.


Your takes?